Today I’m going to be showing you the final reveal of my ‘Celebration Quilt’ that I made for the 2012 Quilts by Barb Quilt Retreat. If you missed the earlier steps – no worries – you can always take a look back:

So, after the last time I posted I delivered my quilt top to Barb. She took the quilt home and once again, I was amazed at how quickly it was back in my hands!

I was extremely happy to see this amazing triple ovular quilting done all over the quilt. It creates such a cool effect on the quilt. I just love when you mix curves with an angularly pieced quilt. The all over geometric pattern also does a great job of ‘adding’ to the quilt without distracting from what’s going on in the piecing.

I bound the quilt with the coordinating gray stripe ‘Too Muchery Fines’ from Helen Dardik. I was debating between this stripey gray print and using an orange – I’m very pleased with the what I chose.

Now my friend Kaitra just has to wait until she gets married or turns 30 (Dec of 2013) and she’ll get to put this quilt over her bed!

Has this made you want to come to the Quilt Retreat? If you’re already planning on coming – has it gotten you even more excited to make one of your own?

You can see more sample quilt tops and help choosing your fabric on Barb’s blog HERE.

I’ll admit it – my girls have A LOT of clothes. I guess it happens when you have three girls. We have lots of friends who have passed their clothes onto us and I am so grateful to have had to buy so little of the massive piles that we do have.

I did have to go school shopping for a few things for the older girls a few weeks ago and I couldn’t resist this adorable giraffe outfit on clearance for my little Pip. Our new favorite thing is to ask Pip, ‘Where’s Your Belly!?” In the photo above she didn’t realize she could pull her shirt up…she’s pulling her shorts up to show us her belly! Here…the girl behind all that hair has figured out she can pull her shirt up!

I’m really excited to be a part of the Quilting Gallery’s big Celebrate Back to School’s Blog Hop Party. If this is your first time here I just want to welcome you to my blog! I’ll just give you a quick overview of the major things that happen on here: (and yes – I will ship internationally…)

Project QUILTING

The biggest thing that happens on my blog is ‘Project QUILTING’. To find out more about Project QUILTING click HERE.Season 4 is tentatively scheduled to start in January of 2013 (sorry for the wait…it’s apple season!)

Challenges

I love a good challenge! And if it’s at all possible for me to squeeze it in – I will. The latest quilt I finished from a scrap challenge is here:

Amazing Technicolor Dream Quilt

Home Sweet Home Quilt Along

Earlier in 2012 I hosted the Home Sweet Home Quilt Along. I should have my quilt finished and ready to share with you all in the next few weeks. It’s not too late to go back and use the block tutorials to make your very own quilt!

Quilt Alongs

I fell so in love with quilt alongs in 2011 that I am currently working on seven all at the same time! I update either weekly or biweekly of my progress on them. You can see my latest post HERE.

Etsy

I’m an avid seller (PersimonDreams and TheApple) and supporter on etsy so I do post tips/tricks/tutorials to help you on your way to be a successful etsy seller. I also enjoy featuring great items I find on there.

I do have separate blogs for my family and orchard (yes, I own an apple orchard) but sometimes the news is just too great I can’t help but to share it on here too!

GIVEAWAY!

So – what am I giving away? Well – I’m going to give one lucky winner $25 gift certificate to use in either of my etsy shops – PersimonDreams and TheApple or, if you're in the Poynette, WI, area - at my brick and mortar apple store. And it’s simple to enter!

Required for ENTRY: All you have to do is leave me a comment telling me which one of the Quilts in my etsy shop is your favorite: Click HERE. Be sure to include your email in your comment so I can notify you of your prize! If I can’t get a hold of you I will redraw!

If you want to be entered more than once – these are some bonus entry options:

I’m guessing this will be the last ‘dramatic’ Block of the Month and Quilt Along updates for awhile. Apple season is going to be kicking it into full gear here and my sewing time will be cut quite a bit. Regardless – I’m really excited to show off my progress I’ve made in the last couple of weeks. I analyze a lot in the following post so I am going to apologize ahead for my long-windedness ;)

I have to admit…I didn’t make this one. I just didn’t feel that i had the time or patience to challenge myself at this point. I do intend to come back and make the block and then maybe make a mug rug or something from it.Block 17 – Tacha at Fat Quarterly

I forgot to photo this block separately…sorry for the blurriness caused by the cropping.

Block 18 – Canoe Ridge Creations I liked this block so much – simple but so effective, that I made it twice – in two color ways. My colored fabric as the ‘candy’ and my black and white fabric as the ‘candy’.

The blocks are done – now let’s put it all together! Of course, I didn’t take a picture of my blocks all pieced together pre-border so I did a little cropping to try to give you the gist of what it looked like. It was really fun. I had a great time putting together all the fun random blocks for

I was really loving how my blocks pieced together but it was sort of an awkward size – not big enough for a lap quilt but probably too big for a wall hanging. It was time to add borders. I’ll be the first to admit – I hate putting on borders – probably my least favorite part of quilting (I’m still trying to convince Diane that I should make the quilt centers and then she could take and add some of her amazingly awesome borders to them….hasn’t worked yet). But, I’ll also be the first to admit that borders can make such an incredible difference to a quilt. Once I added the borders you see above I feel like my quilt went from cool – to Amazing! I’m beyond happy with how it came together.

It’s already on it’s way to Barb for her to do her quilting magic on it. I’m amazed that I got it all together as fast as I did! Next time I show it to you – it will be finished!

2012 8-inch Sampler Quilt from all different Quilt Along’s, Block’s of the Months, and my Own Ideas! – 60 blocks made!

I sort of think I need to go and count my blocks…I really think I made more than 2 new blocks since the last time I posted…hmmm… Anyway – How cool is this looking!? I’m having such an amazing time working on these blocks. I love the different challenges each quilt along has given me.

I will be the first to tell you – piecing is not my specialty. I have learned so much about piecing just taking the time to do these blocks and I really feel that my piecing skills have improved drastically. I can now look at most blocks and their instructions and either agree that, “Yes, this is the best way for me to put it together.” or say, “Nope – I need to do it a different way. For anyone out there reading this that is just starting to quilt or has gone more of the way of art quilting I STRONGLY recommend trying some quilt alongs. You never know what you’re going to learn and what you can create from it.

Anyway – I’ll get off my soap box now and I’ll get on to just showing you my progress.

I have two of every block made for the Blogger’s BOM! And I just realized tomorrow’s the 25th so a new block will be coming out. Hmmm…maybe I should have waited to update until Monday. Oh well.

I haven’t done any more blocks for the Crumb Along….but I haven’t given up on them (I LOVE them). And I had an extra four square from one of the Beginnger’s Quilt Along Blocks I made just made so I plan to crumb it up to add to these blocks.

I finished the 10 blocks from the New York Beauty Quilt Along! I was definitely getting the hang of these by the end BUT I definitely think I’m going to keep at just 1 each for this quilt – but boy – do I LOVE them and how they are going to add so much to this quilt.

58 blocks so far…and still counting (I put two in twice to fill up the mosaic…)! Hmm…I wonder how big this is going to get?

I am ‘tweaking’ the ‘Beginner’s Quilt Along’ that’s starting up at the Quilting Gallery to make the 12” block designs work in my 8-inch sampler. Many of these I’m doing more of the ‘crumb’ style – it’s fun and low stress. I have almost 2 of all the blocks made and then there’s still one more block that I believe will be posted next week.

Sometime’s BOM’s are nice to just have the fabric all sent already precut for you – and that’s exactly what I’m doing with FabricFascination’s. It’s been a very therapeutic project with very low stress – yet a feeling of accomplishment when you finish your block each month.

I wanted to do a post related to one of the recent Etsy Finds Emails we received. I want to see if I have anything that fits in with the Fall’s Hottest Color Trends or if I need to do some work – and fast!

It is finished! My quilt for the Scrap Quilt Contest is completely done – quilted and bound! I am beyond excited about it and I can’t wait to hear what you all think! Thank you so much Shannon from Fabrics N Quilts for putting this challenge out there! I’ve had this quilt in my mind for awhile now – it was time for it to come out! If it weren’t for this challenge – I’m not sure if it would have happened. This is exactly why I host Project Quilting each year. You never know what challenge is going to kick start one of your best quilts ever…

I’m super happy with how it turned out! The only thing I would change ‘if” I were to do one again would to make the ‘blue’ section (left middle in this picture) with darker blues. It almost blends too much with my turquoise portion. Don’t get me wrong – I am still beyond in love with this quilt…but there’s always room to improve and sometimes you don’t see it until you step back from a project and just let it ‘sit’ for a bit.

I really love how that the quilt looks totally different depending on which angle you look at it.Here’s a closer look at the machine quilting done by Barb Raisbeck of Quilts by Barb. All I asked for when I sent her was, “modern”. She decided on the perfect pattern – lime green circles of different sizes all over the quilt top. In certain colors, the lime green thread blends and in other colors it contrasts nicely. It creates yet another aspect of depth to the quilt.

This turned out to be one of those quilts that you can look at for a long time and see something different each time.

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